


Doomsday

by soranokumo



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Canon - Original Game, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-04
Updated: 2012-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-28 22:05:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/312653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soranokumo/pseuds/soranokumo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Avalanche faces Sephiroth in the crater and defeats him. Meteor falls, Holy appears. The heroes appear to have won, but... (Post-game, AU based upon the original game's canon.)</p><p>Sephiroth x Cloud main. Warnings include character death, some explicit language, and implied sexual situations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doomsday

The sky is filled with choking black ash and all that is left of the world is warped metal and cold bodies. He pushes himself up on hands and knees and the earth beneath him is roaring, trembling, and he is at the edge of a giant crater and the sky is dark and it's only because of the Mako infusion that he can see at all, can see the warped metal and the familiar shapes and the unfamiliar landscape and the whole world is screaming at him--

***

  
He wakes up with a gasp, and the blanket falls from his shoulders. The morning chill causes him to shudder, but a warm hand touches his shoulder. He startles again, only to look down and see pale jade eyes gleaming in the dark, looking up at him. What was amusement on that perfect face turns to concern, and his lover sits up beside him.

"Are you all right?"

"I..." Cloud takes a deep breath, looks around their bedroom. There is the Masamune on the rack on the wall; beneath it hangs his own sword, a large two-handed blade called the Buster Sword, a gift from his friend when he was accepted into the SOLDIER program. There are the heavy curtains, drawn to keep out Midgar's evening lights, and there is the door to the bathroom and the door out to the hallway... Everything is where it should be. Everything is just so.

Sephiroth doesn't say anything else, just makes another soft sound of concern. Cloud looks up at him, and shakes his head, and when Sephiroth kisses him he opens up. It's a distraction from the vividness of his dream, and when he's pressed back down into the bed the rest of it slips away like smoke.

***

  
Their mission takes them out to Wutai to deal with a rebelling force out in the mountain forests. The Shinra cannot lay blame for the rebellion at Lord Godo's feet--not in the interest in some continuing illusion of peace--but if they find any links that he was secretly supplying the rebels with armaments or supplies, they are to investigate further and report back.

Cloud strikes out ahead of Sephiroth, ranging off the path to scout for any signs of the rebel establishment. It's nighttime but the moon is full overhead, casting beams of silver light through the leaves. One stray beam illuminates a sharp edge, something imbedded into a tree trunk, and Cloud frowns, moves closer. It's a shuriken, and whatever encounter happened here was recent enough; there are patches of broken foliage and slashes across the bark of the pines.

The next shuriken comes so quickly he hardly hears it before ducking. The sheer size of the thing makes him grateful for his reflexes, as he watches it whirl in the air backwards, returning to the hand that threw it. He rolls up and draws his blade, but pauses when he sees his opponent kneeling on a branch up ahead, glaring at him.

She's a girl. A gawky, gangly teenager, hardly the kind of hardened ninja they were expecting.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"I could ask you the same thing," he says, straightening, sword held in front of him defensively. "Are you with the rebellion?"

She rolls her eyes. "What do you think, genius? You should know better."

His lips press thin. "I didn't think they were so desperate they needed to recruit little girls."

"Like you're one to talk! What are you, like, sixteen?"

He blinks. "So what?"

"You're not that much older than me! And what's up with that uniform?"

"Enough talking. Surrender now and I won't have to cut you down."

"So the Great Hero Sephiroth has no problem killing little girls?" she spits, and Cloud growls.

"I'm not Sephiroth."

"That's right, you're his--" She stops, her head snapping around, and with a startled squeak she jumps down and takes off running.

"Tch." The whole exchange is weird, but she's definitely tied into the rebellion, and he takes off after her. For all of her youth, she's fast. He can't quite figure out what spooked her when she seemed to be taking a lot of pleasure in taunting him, but it doesn't matter. A target's a target.

He nearly loses her when she jumps up into the trees, but then she breaks cover to enter a large, grassy field, and although she ducks beneath the tall grasses he reaches out with a spell. The materia in the Buster Sword's hilt gleams brilliantly but somethings goes wrong--the quake spell is stronger than he expects, and he hears her yelp as the earth buckles and throws her up into the air. Even as she's twisting to land on all fours, he hears the materia in the hilt crack, and can feel something--something inside him--snap as well. He grunts but staggers forward, watches as she stands, her shuriken ready, her face suddenly distraught.

"Why are you doing this?" she asks, and he shakes his head.

"Does it matter?" he growls. "You had your chance to surrender. If you're regretting your career choice now, then you shouldn't have ever joined the resistance in the first place."

"Cloud--" she starts, but she's cut off as a familiar blade emerges through her shoulder. She screams, cries out as Sephiroth swings Masamune with enough force to sling her off of it, sending her sprawling into the grass. Cloud moves toward her, watching as her hand drops the shuriken and reaches up to cover the wound futilely.

"Godo's daughter," Sephiroth says, standing behind him, looking down at her. "And apparently, one of the leaders of the resistance."

The Kisaragi girl glares up at Sephiroth, teeth grit. "We hate you," she grinds out. "We hate you, and you'll--agh!"

Sephiroth's kick comes too quickly for Cloud to object, and Cloud blinks in surprise as he watches her body roll further in the grass. He looks up at his Commander, brow furrowing, and shakes his head before going to her side.

"We should take her in for questioning, shouldn't we, sir?" he says, covering her mouth with his hand to stifle her, keep her from saying anything else.

But Sephiroth's expression is cold, and his gaze slides from her to Cloud. "She'll tell us nothing we don't already know. She was trying to lead us away from their encampment. I'll go on ahead. Cloud, finish her."

"But sir--" Cloud stops, then, watching as Sephiroth stops, turns and looks back at him. He shakes his head, ducks it down in apology. "I'm sorry, sir."

"She knew what she was getting into long ago, Cloud," Sephiroth says. "If you really object, I'll finish her instead. But we shouldn't waste anymore time."

"Sir."

Sephiroth seems satisfied with that, and pushes his way through the grass, disappearing silently. Cloud looks down at the Kisaragi girl, Lord Godo's daughter, and removes his hand from over her mouth. She's looking up at him, her dark eyes wide, wet, and she bites her lower lip to stifle a sob.

"I'm sorry," Cloud says, standing and holding the Buster Sword in both hands. "But I'll make it quick, and painless."

"Cloud," she says, and he clenches his jaw. "Cloud, it's me, Yuffie--"

But the Buster Sword's blade is sharp, and the end comes quickly. Cloud stares down at her body, feeling empty. There's no victory in this, in killing a young girl, even if she is one of the leaders of the Wutaian resistance. He reaches down, and closes her eyes, so she looks like she's sleeping.

She should be sleeping, not dead.

***

  
In the end, despite his daughter being part of the resistance, there's no sign of direct assistance from Lord Godo. Even after they've wiped the rebels' fortress clean of resistance, Cloud lingers behind, searching their intelligence records. He finds plenty of things that would interest the Shinra, but he can't find the one thing he's looking for.

"What is it?" Sephiroth asks, from behind, and Cloud shakes his head as he accesses another computer terminal.

"I can't find it..."

"Find what?"

"Signs that they've gotten into the SOLDIER personnel files..." He looks up at Sephiroth. "She knew my name. The Kisaragi girl."

"She must have overheard us speaking to one another before. I wouldn't think anything of it." Sephiroth turns his head to the side, snorting softly. "A girl that young, fighting in the resistance... and them willingly taking her on, even though she was their lord's only heir. Idiots, all of them."

Cloud is silent, still staring at the screen in disbelief as it cycles through the files, searching for information about SOLDIER.

"Won't Godo respond with another war?" he asks, finally, watching the search complete and return zero results. "We killed his daughter..."

"We'll tell him she died in battle, which isn't a complete lie. And if he really wanted to keep her alive... then perhaps he shouldn't have let her run off to join the rebellion in the first place."

***

  
He can't argue with Sephiroth's logic; there is a reason the man is the Commander of SOLDIER, and the mind behind the plans that brought Wutai to its knees during the war in the first place. But he's still unnerved with the look on Sephiroth's face that he saw that night, and the entire conversation, however stilted, however brief, with the Kisaragi girl bothers him. How did she know his name? Why did she act as if she knew him? He hadn't been involved in the war, he had been accepted into SOLDIER too late, so it wasn't as if he had been in Wutai before.

When they return to Midgar he uses his privileges to access the SOLDIER database from his office, and searches first for any indications of files being hacked. The security results show nothing out of order. It's at that point that he searches for his own personnel file, because there's one question in particular that's bothering him.

When his file appears on the screen, he sits for a moment, still, quiet, unable to move.

The field to indicate his age is blank. His birthdate says nothing beyond "August 11th."

***

  
Patrol the next day takes him down into the slums. He sticks to the shadows as he goes along the required route, but he sees nothing unusual for the slums. At one point he takes down a thief who was attempting to mug a flower girl, but even as he was cuffing the felon the girl ran away and he didn't even get a chance to see her face.

What he finds is one of her flowers, though, a pretty white and yellow thing in the dirt. When the troopers arrive to haul the thief away, he picks it up, brushes the dirt from its petals.

When he gets home that night he puts it in a glass. He waters it every day, and Sephiroth never asks about it, seems to think nothing of it. For some reason, that relieves him, though Cloud can't explain why he feels that way. Why would Sephiroth be upset over a flower?

***

  
Flowers wither and die without the roots to support them, though. When Cloud returns from a mission to Icicle Inn to deal with a Malboro infestation, he finds the flower brown and black and dry and dead.

He finds himself hoping for another call to patrol the slums again, and tells himself it's stupid.

***

  
"We have another joint mission soon," Sephiroth says, one night as they lay in bed together. Ropes are still bound around Cloud's wrists, but he's too relaxed and drunk from pleasure to care.

"Mm?"

"To Rocket Town, this time."

"Oh?"

"Shinra wants us to monitor the launch."

He chuckles, and looks up at Sephiroth sleepily. "That's all? They want the best SOLDIER and his subordinate to stand around while the rocket launches? I mean, it's good that they finally finished the rocket... but it seems... strange."

"Actually," Sephiroth says, and presses a kiss to Cloud's brow, "we're there to make sure there are no interruptions."

"Interruptions?"

"The Turks have a mission there as well."

"Oh." Cloud closes his eyes, curls up close against Sephiroth's side. "So they have us babysitting again."

"Loose monitoring, I should think."

"But what do Turks have to do with the rocket launch?"

"Hmm." Sephiroth doesn't have to say anything else. Even though Cloud asked, he knows the answer already. The Turks and SOLDIER are still kept strictly separate, and although the Turks are allowed to spy on them as they please, SOLDIER remains in the dark about Turk operations.

***

  
Rocket Town is still an odd mess of buildings and architecture, all sprawling out around the rocket launch site. The rocket itself stands tall and proud, gleaming and with a fresh coat of heat-resistant polish. Cloud oversees the evacuation of the town residents a safe distance away from the launch site, in case the unthinkable happens and the launch fails for a second time in Shinra history, but he does it in good humor. Elsewhere, Sephiroth is keeping an eye on the launch crew, all of whom will soon huddle inside the launch control bunker to watch as their hard work comes to fruition.

It's been awhile since Cloud's felt this sensation of hope thrumming through the air, and as he's the last person out of the town he manages to catch a glimpse of the Shinra's chosen astronaut--Captain Cid Highwind. But the captain is talking to someone in a suit--a Turk--though last Cloud checked the Turks didn't wear black.

When the captain's watery blue eyes look Cloud's way, though, their eyes meet briefly, and Cloud realizes that for all the hope in the air, the captain seems tense. Then again, he would be. He's about to become the first man in space.

Cloud looks away, looks down to see a small girl smiling up at him, tugging at his pants. He lifts her up in his arms, asks her where her mother is, walks her along with the last of the stragglers out of the town and to the observation platform some distance away.

He stands with them, bored but content, as they all count down together to the rocket's launch. They all cheer as the rocket's engines flare and the rocket vibrates, begins to lift off the ground, pushing its way skyward. It resists the Planet's pull, breaks free, starts shooting high into the air. Rocket Town's people, all family members of the rocket's crew, are cheering even long after all they can see are the smoke contrails and the flash of light of the sun against the rocket's metal side.

But then the flash grows immeasurably bright, into a glare, and the contrails split, smoke shooting off in different directions. Cloud's eyes grow wide, and the spectators grow quiet, horrified.

***

  
He doesn't dare vent anywhere in Rocket Town, certainly not where there is still a strong Shinra presence, certainly not where there are still Turks lurking around. The news feeds all declare that some eco-terrorist group called AVALANCHE is claiming responsibility for the rocket's explosion, and so he uses it as an excuse to scout the surrounding area, see if he can find any evidence of the scum. Sephiroth indulges him, and surprises him even by saying he will come along with him.

It's only when they're out in the wilds, having struck out so far as the coastal cliffs nearby Rocket Town, that he turns to Sephiroth.

"What the hell is going on? The Turks? I thought we were supposed to babysit them to make sure nothing like that happened?" He runs his hand through his hair, turns to look out at the sea. "Why would they--the Shinra has sunk years of engineering and money into this--and Captain Highwind, he--they still haven't found the escape pod, have they?"

Sephiroth stands behind him, quiet for a moment. "The last signals from the rocket did not indicate the escape pod had been utilized. They're already organizing crews to recover the pieces of the rocket; they have an idea where the escape pod should have fallen."

"But why?" Cloud says, twisting around to look up at Sephiroth. "Why would they?"

He's silent, at first, jade eyes watching Cloud quietly, and it's only because Cloud has known him for so long, so well, that he can tell by the tightening of Sephiroth's brows that his Commander is as concerned as he is.

"I don't know. It doesn't make much sense."

"They should be able to tell you. Doesn't it look bad for the Shinra? They had us here, and we couldn't stop ‘AVALANCHE' from doing this?"

Sephiroth is quiet for a moment longer, then comes to Cloud's side. "That could be exactly their purpose. The Wutai War is over, and with Godo's daughter dead the Wutaian resistance is cowed. But Shinra makes money with adversity. It could be the Shinra is deliberately hoping to create a false war to replace the one that finished."

"They can't just fabricate an entire war..." Cloud starts, but trails off when Sephiroth shakes his head. "Gods. They would...?"

"There is an AVALANCHE out there already, but they've been quiet for some time. If they take advantage of this... they could gain more followers. And then we would have a real resistance on our hands."

Cloud drops his gaze, looks down at the waves crashing upon the cliffs. He can't think of anything more to say to voice his disgust, and when Sephiroth kneels down behind him, wrapping his arms around him, Cloud leans back into the embrace, shutting his eyes and concentrating only upon that feeling.

"That's right... you're mine, aren't you?"

"Yours." Cloud opens his eyes, looks up at Sephiroth, reaches up with a hand to touch his face.

"Even more than Shinra? Even more than SOLDIER?"

"Yours," Cloud repeats. "Always."

***

  
He's crawling his way through the wreckage. All around him is hell--the sky is choked with meteoric ash, and the Mako shoots out of the ground, surges back into it, drawing souls with it or spitting out the vengeful ones to twist into monsters. He tries to avoid them, but he's had to fight one of them off already, and he needs to find Ultima Weapon but his only guess is that it's somewhere in the Highwind's wreckage--

No, wait--there's a gleam in that twisted metal, and Cloud can feel a familiar, if weak, pull toward it. The blade had always responded to him somehow, so he shouldn't be surprised he can feel it, even now. He hurries toward it, picking himself up off his hands and knees, nearly running until he reaches the sheet of metal covering it, hiding all but the handle from view.

A sword--his sword--all that he needs to survive until he can find the others--

But his hope catches in his throat, and he stands there in quiet shock to see the crystalline blade is shot through with veins of jet, and the core that was once an indigo-violet is now jade green.

He doesn't have long to wonder, however, when he hears a low groan behind him, turning into an angry growl.

***

  
Cloud wakes up and he can still taste blood in his mouth, then realizes he must have bitten his lip in his sleep. He sits up in bed and reaches out instinctively for Sephiroth but Cloud knows he won't be there. Sephiroth had left on a solo mission yesterday. It had something to do with Cosmo Canyon; Cloud had hoped to go, as he had always wanted to visit the place, but the area wasn't known for its friendly attitude toward Shinra. That might well have something to do with the mission, but of course it was classified.

In the meantime, he has the day to himself, for once without any duties. He gets up, gets dressed, wonders why as he looks in the mirror that he seems paler than usual. Was it the dream? It had been horrible, he remembers that much, but the thought of something other than a visit to the science department making him that pale--it's idiotic.

He tells himself a walk will let him shake it off, and pulls on his leather jacket as he steps outside. They live in one of the nicer areas of Sector One, just outside the border of Sector Zero, giving them at least one more illusion of separation from work. The housing might still be military but the apartments flanking theirs stand empty, out of consideration for the Commander of SOLDIER's privacy... and probably some desire from the PR department to keep people from realizing that their prized hero was sleeping with a young man, let alone a subordinate.

He pets the guardhounds on the heads as he leaves the housing complex, and pauses outside of the gate, looking up at the overclouded sky. It was getting colder faster than usual that year. It was only October, wasn't it? He can't remember, but it doesn't bother him much. He wants to clear his mind, after all.

So he goes walking. He walks among the throng of people that are always rushing around Midgar, tries to feel himself get lost in the crowd. It would be easier but his bright hair makes him stand out; thankfully all it takes is a glance at his eyes, glowing with Mako, to inspire them to back off and give him more space. He doesn't really have a place in mind, anywhere to go, but he finds himself getting closer to Sector Seven, and then toward the main train station. He pauses at the traffic circle just outside of the station, in the shadow of the corresponding Mako Reactor for that sector, and hesitates. It looks familiar, but of course, it should, right?

"Looking a little lost, aren't ya, Strife?"

Cloud recognizes that voice before he feels the chill down his spine, and he turns to look at Reno, smirking a bit at the red-headed Turk. "Lost? Hardly."

Reno slinks out from behind a coffee vendor, holding a cup of something black and vile, Cloud's certain, and takes a loud sip before nodding. "Yeah, well. Not often you get time off-duty, is it? And without him around... ample time on your hands. So what is it you do, anyway?"

Cloud blinks. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

Reno shrugs. "Just seems weird. Don't you got any friends in SOLDIER?"

"Of course I do."

"So? I don't see any of them around here."

He looks back at the busy circle. "So why are you around here? Not spying on me, I hope."

"Pssht. We got better things to do than spy on you. We know what you've been doing--or been done by--anyway." Reno takes another sip of his coffee, drops the rest of the cup unfinished into a nearby trashcan. "Shit still tastes like ash."

"It's because you smoke too much."

"Ain't smoking now, am I? Anyway, yeah, on the lookout for someone who's been missing for a bit. She's real important to Shinra."

"Heh. You want some interdepartmental help to find her?"

Reno laughs. "I think you're probably the last person we want finding her." When Cloud looks at Reno quizzically, the Turk shakes his head, waves a hand. "Nothing, nothing. But you should probably find one of your SOLDIER friends, hang out with them. Whatever happened to your friend, you know, who gave you that sword of yours?"

"My sword...?" Cloud thinks about it, about the Buster Sword, still in its place of honor in the apartment. "Oh. He..."

"Wasn't he the best?" Reno says, fondly. "Sad to see him gone."

"Gone?"

Reno shakes his head, sticks his hands in his pockets, starts walking. "Anyway, you've got bigger problems on your plate. You should go find your friends."

Cloud watches as the Turk disappears into the crowd.

"Everything's confusing now, isn't it?" The voice comes from behind him, gentle, familiar, a whisper like a summer breeze. It's comforting, in the midst of this strange autumn. Oddly enough, Cloud doesn't turn around, though he feels like everything--the cold, the crowd, the vehicles--all grow still.

"It's strange. Everyone keeps saying things to me, like they expect me to remember stuff, but... it's not there." Cloud does turn, and looks over his shoulder. There's a girl in pink standing at the entrance to the alley, a basket filled with flowers held in the crook of her elbow. "You... You're the flower girl from the other day."

She nods, smiles at him, a little sadly. "I am. You remember that."

"Of course I do." He smiles at her. "You dropped one of your flowers. I... I really liked it, I kept it alive as long as I could. Oh, hey..." He reaches into this jacket pocket. "I should pay for it--actually, if it's all right, I can buy--"

"Cloud," she says, and he stops, looks up at her. "Cloud, it's all right."

"How do you know my name?" he asks her, and she shakes her head.

"It isn't important. I just... I wanted to see you again. Without him." She steps closer, looks up at him. Her eyes are a deep green, but something about them seems so sad. He wonders what it is, what he could do to make that sadness go away. "I can't even touch you anymore. He's cruel, doing this..."

"What are you talking about...?" Cloud breathes, and she takes a step back again toward the alley, and suddenly the noise and the chill come flooding back, and Cloud hears Reno behind him. The flower girl looks past Cloud, at the Turk who is coming closer, faster, and when she looks at Cloud again she just shakes her head.

"Cloud, it's all right."

And just as suddenly as that, she's gone again, and Reno curses as he stumbles to a halt, looking around. He whirls and snarls at Cloud.

"She was right here! The one we need! What the hell were you doing, just standing around when I yelled at you to grab her?"

"I didn't hear you tell me to do anything, Turk," Cloud growls back, and steps away. "Anyway, back off. SOLDIER and the Turks fall under separate commands, last I checked. And next time I offer to help, maybe you should take me up on it first."

He leaves Reno glaring at his back, and it's only after he's walked away that Cloud realizes that the crowd didn't seem to react to the strange scene at all. Either interdepartmental fights really were more common these days, or whatever strange thing was in the air seemed to be affecting all of them.

***

  
He goes to the SOLDIER floor of the Shinra Building, hoping not to get grabbed by an officer to perform some duty even though technically he should be off for the whole day. The floor is empty, however, and Cloud goes to the locker room. He finds his locker easily, stares at the lockers to either side, but doesn't see the locker he thought should be nearby his. He wanders a few more steps, reading the names, and finally stops in front of a locker where the name has been partially removed.

"Za...?" Cloud murmurs, tilts his head to the side as he looks at it. "Za...ck? Zack. That's it."

"Strife?" It's a scientist, standing awkwardly at the door. "Umm. I'm sorry to bother you, but... we have to do some tests, and we had it cleared with the superiors that it's your day off, so..."

Cloud's eyes narrow. "Tell Hojo he can schedule my tests and inform me in advance next time. I'm not going in for more of his little games today."

"Hojo?" The young man adjusts his spectacles. "Of course not. This is for Professor Gast."

At that, Cloud calms down. "Oh. Of course."

The scientist shakes his head. "If you don't remember Hojo dying a few years ago... then it's probably a good idea to get some tests done."

Cloud doesn't comment at that, just looks one more time at the locker before he follows the other man out. Professor Gast isn't actually there to speak with him, just his numerous assistants, and Cloud lets them do what they need to do, poking and prodding him. They get all the samples they want, and then he's free to go, but as he's stepping out he hears some commotion from down the hall. Something large, four-legged, and red goes dashing past him, and Cloud hears one of the scientists crying out that one of the specimens has escaped. Cloud takes off after the beast, but it has no problem knocking down scientists and regular employees on its way to the emergency stairwell. He turns a corner just in time to see it dragging some of the regular troopers on guard down with its fangs and teeth, but it doesn't take the time to properly maul them; it truly only seems interested in getting away. Unfortunately for it, the guards do buy Cloud enough time to catch up to it, and before it can the door to the stairwell he tackles it. The two of them go rolling, and Cloud is surprised by the creature's strength. It manages to pin him beneath it, and then it looks down at him with a single crimson eye.

"Cloud?" the beast says, its eye widening in surprise. "What are you doing...?"

"Why is it everyone seems to know me?" Cloud says, his own shock at hearing his name spoken by a stranger giving way to frustration, and with a growl he shoves the creature off of himself. It--no, he, he's definitely a male--looks up at him, then glances at the guards swarming the lobby, all of them lowering their guns at them. The beast opens his mouth to speak one more time, but the bullets reach him first, and at that range there's nothing the creature can do to defend itself against the weaponry. Cloud watches as he falls without even putting up a fight, just looking up at Cloud, his one eye plaintive.

Cloud shouts for them to stop, they've wasted enough bullets, that the specimen will die, and when he kneels down beside him, the red beast gives his hand a comforting lick before he grows still.

***

  
He finally finds it. The wreckage of the Highwind. He recognizes it first from the shape of the bridge; the main body of the vessel has been crushed in from a building thrown from Midgar due to the impact.

He stands on a mound of debris and dirt and ash, with the wind howling around him, soot and snow whirling around him. But he feels cold, even without the wind, without the snow.

He sees the mangled bodies, and there's just enough left that he can even recognize each one.

Ultima Weapon slips from his hand.

***

  
Cloud is quiet, feeling distant from everything around him as he sits in the transport. He can't even be grateful that the SOLDIER treatments had made it easier for him to resist motion sickness. He's nervous; his stomach is tied into knots. He hates this.

"Hey, are you all right, sir?" It's a trooper, small and nervous, beside him. "Are you sick?" The voice grows quieter. "It's okay, I get a little sick, too, on long rides."

He cracks open his eyes, looks at the trooper, and shakes his head. "It's nothing. I'm just not in a good mood. Look, if you're motion sick, why don't you sit down here?" He stands up, gestures to the seat. The trooper seems to look up at him in amazement at his generosity, though the helmet and mask make it difficult to say for sure.

"Really, sir? Thank you, sir!"

"You have been tense, since they shot down that specimen in the science department," Sephiroth says, quietly, from the other side of the truck, and Cloud shakes his head.

"I'm not sure I can explain it..."

"Care to try?"

Cloud glances at the trooper, then looks back at Sephiroth again. "No... Not right now. Later. Sir."

Sephiroth's expression grows more concerned, but he nods. "Of course..."

***

  
Nibelheim is the same as it always has been, though there is the light dusting of snow on the eaves and remaining in the patches of shadow... the first snowfall of the year. Cloud stands in the town circle, drinking it all in, while Sephiroth is at the inn. He stares up at the overcast sky, at the white wintry light, and then makes his way to the smallest house in the town. He hesitates at the door, and nearly knocks when he hears a familiar voice from behind him.

"Cloud?!"

"Tifa?" He turns with a smile, and suddenly finds his arms full of the brunette, her strong arms wrapped around him.

"I didn't think you'd make it!"

"Make it?" Cloud carefully disentangles from her hug, and looks down at her with a small smile. "We're just here to help with that little monster problem..."

Tifa's own smile slips at that. "Monster problem?" She glances about, looking specifically at the inn, and then back to him, lowering her voice to a whisper. "But Cloud... didn't you come, for us?"

"For us?"

"You know... he's here, too. We're trying to see if we can't get everyone together. We think if maybe we all fight back at once, surely we can get the Planet back." Her smile comes back, confident and pretty as ever. "And if you're with us, then there's no way we can lose!"

"Tifa..." Cloud glances up at the inn as well, pulls her away from the town circle, shaking his head. "Tifa, are you involved with them? AVALANCHE? Because you shouldn't. You can't."

"Cloud, what are you talking about?" she says, in disbelief. "We're all in this together, aren't we? Until the end? Even Barret's here. We've tried getting in touch with the others, but everything here is weird, and we heard about Cid and... you know?" Her voice trembles. "I'm actually getting a bit scared, thinking about it. We haven't heard anything from Reeve at all. He sent something to us about ‘Turks in black' showing up and that was the last thing we heard."

"Why would Reeve be contacting you?" Cloud asks, and his chest and head feel tight, suddenly. "Why would he be contacting... AVALANCHE?"

"Cloud, don't you remember?" Tifa says.

"Cloud...?" It's Sephiroth, and Cloud and Tifa both look up as the Commander of SOLDIER approaches them. "I'm sorry to interrupt." He looks at Tifa. "You must be Tifa Lockheart... Cloud has spoken of you." He inclines his head. "It's a pleasure to meet you at last."

"A pleasure," Tifa echoes, faintly, but she shakes her head. "Well, you two are busy with your mission, aren't you? I'll just... go find Zangan for my next lesson." She looks at Cloud over her shoulder, comes back and throws her arms around him in a hug, and she whispers into his ear, before she heads toward the inn. Cloud's gaze remains on her until she enters the building, and then he looks at his commanding officer.

"We aren't here to just exterminate monsters, are we?" Cloud asks, and Sephiroth shakes his head.

"I hadn't wanted to say anything before... but there was some indication that AVALANCHE was starting to reform itself here." Sephiroth neatly steps in Cloud's view of the inn, and reaches with a gloved hand to tilt his head up, capturing Cloud's gaze with his own. "Cloud... They're our target. If she said anything to you about them..."

Cloud lowers his gaze. "I... She's..."

***

  
There's not much left of any of them, but he digs them graves with his hands. He can't dig graves for everyone who has died here, but he will for them.

Gods. It's all he can do for them now.

Only... one is missing. He's searched the entire wreckage of the Highwind, but he can't find him.

***

  
"Cloud?" It's Sephiroth, and Cloud opens his eyes to see Sephiroth leaning over him. His long silver hair has fallen over his shoulders, draping across Cloud's bare skin, and he looks up at Sephiroth and shakes his head. "You were crying in your sleep..."

"I'm scared..."

"Scared?" Sephiroth's hand cups his cheek, his thumb stroking beneath his eye, and Cloud turns his face to the side, pressing into that firm hand. "Why?"

"I keep... I think I'm going crazy. Doesn't that happen, sometimes, to SOLDIERs? Something about the Mako infusion process, maybe we get too much, we start hearing voices from the Planet and then everything gets strange and gods, I keep thinking I know people or they all seem to know me and I can't--I don't--I don't remember." He looks up at Sephiroth, shaking his head. "I don't remember any of them, any of it."

"Cloud," Sephiroth says firmly, and Cloud stills, unable to resist any command from him. "Cloud, you're stronger than that. It isn't the Mako doing anything to you." He leans down, pressing his lips against the side of Cloud's throat. "But things have gone strangely since the end of the Wutai War... perhaps it's too much stress. Or perhaps it's the damn Shinra..." His lips slide up to Cloud's ear; he can feel Sephiroth's breath, light and warm, against the shell of his ear. "After this mission... won't you come with me? We'll leave it all behind. All of it."

"All of it?"

"Yes. All of it, all of them... the Turks, the scientists, the Shinra..."

"Mm..." And it's hard to resist an invitation like that, especially when that voice hums, sinks into his skin, into his very blood and bones. He shudders, and his hands come around Sephiroth and pull him down with him.

"Please..."

"Please?"

"Please don't let me go... You're the only thing I feel I remember..." His voice chokes up despite himself. "You're the only one I know... and the only one I can trust..."

There's silence for a moment, as Sephiroth's lips descend upon his.

***

  


"I won't let you go... Cloud." The whisper is in the dark, as everything descends into the dark.

***

  
Cloud has to make one more attempt to talk with her. He has to warn her that she's being foolish. She can't join AVALANCHE--those so-called saviors of the Planet would just fall into the Shinra's desire for a new opponent to fight a war with, and to make it worse it would be a war without borders, without set battlefields. It wouldn't just be the environment at stake but civilians, and guerrilla warfare meant no clean casualty counts for either side.

He knows better than to leave a message with her father--the man still sneers at him, even now that he's in a SOLDIER uniform--but he goes downstairs in the inn and happens to see Zangan.

"Finally got everything you dreamed of, eh, boy?" the martial arts master says when he sees Cloud. Cloud's starting to get used to people knowing more about him than they should, and shrugs it off.

"I need you to tell Tifa something for me. I need to speak to her before tonight. She can meet me beside the old graveyard."

Zangan shudders. "If you're sure, boy."

"I'm sure. Thank you." And with that Cloud walks out again. He stops outside Nibelheim's smallest house again, hesitates outside the door and touches the doorknob with his fingertips. It isn't heated; there isn't smoke in the air. There building stands, whole and still. Cloud knocks on the door, and when there's no answer he opens it. It swings open, and he steps inside the house to find it completely empty. There's no furniture. There's no sign that anyone has lived there in years, only dust motes swirling about in the disturbed air.

He backs out, closes the door, shuts his eyes for one long, painful moment. Then he turns and walks toward the cemetery to wait for Tifa. More snow begins to drift down from above, but he ignores the cold, ignores the wind, and walks off the town circle and down one of the side roads.

He reaches the cemetery at the edge of the town, surprised when he sees the trooper there, standing beside a grave. He nearly calls out to him, but then he hears footsteps behind him. It's more than one person, and when he turns he sees a huge man beside Tifa, a man with a gunarm and an obvious dislike for the uniform Cloud's wearing.

"Cloud," Tifa starts, but he shakes his head.

"No. You have to listen to me. Both of you." He glances up at the big man, who opens his mouth to cut Cloud off, but Cloud presses on ahead. "You can't do this. Tifa, you can't join AVALANCHE--and you, sir, you shouldn't be part of it. Shinra is just going to use your organization to its advantage, it's going to use you for its own war machine. Please, you have to disband--"

"What the hell you talkin' about, Spike?" the man says.

"Barret!" Tifa glances up at him. "I told you..." She shakes her head, looks to Cloud. "Cloud, this isn't about AVALANCHE anymore. It's about... It's about everything. Haven't you seen it? Everything here is weird! I mean, I'm supposed to be twenty, right? Why do I still look like I'm sixteen?"

"You look twenty to me," Barret says, and ignores Tifa's sharp look to turn back to Cloud. "Look, whatever the hell is going on--we saw Sephiroth with you before. If this is just that shit at Nibelheim repeating itself, then you should just do us all a favor and kill him now."

Cloud stares blankly at Barret, before shaking his head. "No."

"Cloud," Tifa says, "it's his fault that everything is so screwed up! You hate him, don't you?! Don't you remember what he did to Aerith? To Nibelheim? To your mother? Gods, to all of us?" When Cloud continues to stare at her in a kind of shock, she shakes her head, moves in close and grabs his sweater, hauling it up from the sword harness's belt all the way up to his chest. The cold doesn't faze Cloud, but he's still surprised enough that he doesn't stop her from doing it. "Don't you remember who gave you that scar--"

But she stops mid-sentence, staring at his chest, and Cloud looks down to see his chest as he's always remembered it... pale, but blank.

"Tifa, SOLDIERs don't normally get scars," Cloud says, quietly, and she drops the sweater, and stares up at him, her dark eyes growing wider.

"Oh, gods, he's really gotten to you now, too," she breathes.

"Tifa," Barret says, as if in warning, and Cloud can see his human hand settling on his gun arm. Cloud thinks for a moment that he should have the Buster Sword with him, that it was ridiculous to do this without his sword.

"Well, it seems as if you've managed to get the ringleaders out alone. Good work, Cloud."

Tifa and Barret both whirl around, Tifa sliding into a fighting stance and Barret raising his gunarm, as Sephiroth walks up the path from the village. Cloud can feel even more panic rising in him, shakes his head.

"Sephiroth, no, not yet--I'm not done talking with them, I might--" He stops himself, glances about the graveyard to see it standing empty. "Who told you we were here?"

"You did, of course," Sephiroth says, and from behind him steps out the small trooper from before.

"Ah, this shit is just all fucked up all over," Barret growls, and Sephiroth's jade eyes settle on him.

"Our mission is to exterminate the AVALANCHE forces in Nibelheim," Sephiroth says simply. "We're just doing our duty as SOLDIERs."

"Lies!" Tifa looks over her shoulder back at Cloud. "He's just tricking you again! You know it, Cloud, I know you can remember!"

"But..." Cloud takes a step back, and then hears the trooper's quiet voice, right beside him.

"But it's all we ever wanted," the trooper says, and though his arms are trembling, he holds up the Buster Sword, for Cloud to take. Cloud does take it, stares at the handle before looking down at the trooper. "We lost everything, before. Everything. It all turned to ash and smoke in our hands."

"Cloud, no!" Tifa's fist suddenly collides with the trooper's solar plexus, and Cloud hears the gunarm go off, before there's the singing voice of Masamune swinging through the air and sound of flesh being cut. Cloud has just a moment to watch as the trooper crumples over, and then Tifa turns to face Cloud, her expression panicked, desperate, and Cloud just shakes his head before he drops the Buster Sword and relies on his fists instead, punching her, too, in the gut. Tifa exhales her breath sharply, gasps for a moment, and then falls over, curling up and shaking from the pain. Cloud stares down at her, then looks to the trooper, then looks at Sephiroth as Barret falls over. Sephiroth slings the Masamune free of blood, then comes to stand beside Cloud, staring down at her dispassionately.

"All we have to do is finish this, and then we can leave it all behind," he says to Cloud, and Cloud shakes his head.

"I don't think I can do it..." He looks up at his Commander. "Can't we just... can't we just help her? I'm sure if we just take her away from this... she's already lost him, she's already seen that she can't win. Do we really have to kill her?"

"Would you rather we hand her over to the Turks?" Sephiroth asks. "I saw some of them enter the village minutes ago. We can hand her over to them, if you think she'd fare any better underneath their care."

"At least she'd live..."

"Would she? I wonder." Sephiroth's hand settles on his shoulder. "They weren't Reno, or Rude, or even Tseng. These Turks were all in black. They appear to be a new division."

"Like the one who was talking to Captain Highwind, before the rocket exploded..."

Sephiroth nods. "Would you really leave her to them?"

His hand tightens around the handle of the Buster Sword, and Cloud's eyes slide closed as he raises it overhead.

***

  
The crater is so large it takes him days before he manages to climb to the edge, so he can look all the way down inside. The night sky above him, around him, is black as pitch, and the strange light from the Mako bursts make the remains of Midgar seem more skeletal than usual. But down below, down below, there is the center of everything, there is the place where all the Mako is gathering. He's buried the bodies, but he knows they weren't there anymore. They were--all of them--everyone--was being drawn down below, to that point.

The blade of the Ultima Weapon drags in the dirt behind him, as he starts walking down.

If everyone else is there, it makes sense that he should go there, too.

***

  
The Turks in black swarm the mountain town by the time they come back from the graveyard. They've cordoned off the exits, and begin conducting searches of all the houses, looking for more signs of AVALANCHE. Zangan gets led away from the inn in shackles. Cloud watches the way they shove him into one of their dark vans and he looks up at Sephiroth, nodding in quiet agreement.

He was right, of course.

"Sephiroth, sir." It's one of the Turks, who comes running up to them and doesn't even bother to salute.

"We've taken care of the insurgent leaders," Sephiroth says. "We're done here."

The Turk shakes his head, holds up a folded slip of paper. "Orders from the President himself. They found out Hojo had some projects on the side that he had going on beneath the old mansion here. Wants you and Strife to check it out--if it's anything valuable, haul it back up to the surface so we can take it in and have Gast make it useful."

Sephiroth stares at the Turk for a long moment before taking the paper from his fingers. Cloud watches as he unfolds it, reads it, but Cloud can make out the familiar signature and seal of President Shinra at the bottom. Sephiroth nods. "Understood. But you might tell the President that we're resigning pending the end of this mission."

"W-wait, what?"

"Cloud?" Sephiroth says, turning and headed for the mansion.

"Sir!" Cloud says, and only pauses to pat the Turk on the shoulder before following after him.

***

  
The mansion is dusty and barren of any signs of human habitation since Hojo's scientific crew left it, years ago.

"Apparently one of his specimens killed him," Sephiroth murmurs, climbing the stairs to the second floor. "Fitting, isn't it?"

"One of his specimens?" Cloud echoes, following behind him. "A monster, you mean."

"By the time Hojo was done with him, I imagine so, even if he started out as a human..." Sephiroth seems to know the way, so Cloud follows without questioning him. He still feels oddly empty, and cold, from everything in the cemetery, but his brain seems firmly locked against thinking about it, against dealing with it right now. If he did--if he did stop, even for a second, he's not certain he wouldn't be able to keep himself from falling apart. He'll deal with it later, after they're finished here, and they can be free.

They reach a small room with a bricked-up fireplace in the corner. Sephiroth walks over to the bricks, his gloved fingers ghosting over them, until settling on one brick and pushing in. The wall shudders and a square patch of the bricks shifts back and then moves to the side, revealing an opening. Cloud stands beside Sephiroth and leans in, looking down to see a rickety staircase circling around the wall, down and down. There's hardly any lighting, but Cloud has no problem taking point, leading the way down the steps.

At the bottom, there's an opening to a long corridor, with a few more doors scattered alongside it. Cloud frowns as they step all the way across, but where there once was a door leading to the other side, it has all been caved in; there's nothing more than a wall of rocks and rubble and the remains of the door.

"That's where Hojo died," Sephiroth murmurs, with a shake of his head. "We won't find anything there."

"One of these, then?" Cloud asks, going to one of the door. It's familiar, for some reason, and it's locked as well. He frowns at the lock, but it's old and its joints are rusted. All it takes is one good strike from the Buster Sword to break it, and it falls to the dirt floor with a metallic thud. Cloud pushes open the door, listening to it scrape on stone as the hinges groan... and is thankful there are no signs of monsters down here, or else the noise alone would have alerted every single one of them to their presence.

The room isn't much better without the monsters, however. There are skeletons still held in chains to the walls, to stakes driven into the floor. Added to that are the coffins, scattered about.

"I guess... not this room, either," Cloud says, and starts to back out but his eyes settle on one of the coffins and he pauses.

"Cloud?" Sephiroth says from behind him.

"Is it weird? This feels familiar." Cloud enters the room again, avoiding touching the skeletons and walking to one of the coffins. "Then again, everything is strange, lately..." He kneels down, bracing himself before settling his hands on the coffin and shoving the lid off. It settles to the side, and Cloud finds himself staring down at a man, lying in the coffin with his eyes closed, dressed in strange black and crimson clothing. His left hand and forearm are covered with a metal claw, and his face is ageless, like a SOLDIER's.

"Vincent..." The name slips past his lips, and Cloud hears Sephiroth stepping up behind him.

"...Valentine. Former Turk and ace sniper of the Shinra."

"Is he dead?" Cloud asks, looking up at Sephiroth, and Sephiroth kneels down beside him, reaches in to touch Vincent's throat, feeling for a pulse.

"It would appear he's alive--" But Sephiroth's own voice cuts off and he's suddenly up on his feet, Masamune at hand, and Cloud is confused before he looks down and sees Vincent's crimson eyes staring up at them.

"It's you," Vincent says, and his voice is rough with disuse, but he seems unsurprised to see them--well, to see Cloud there, as his eyes are focused on him. "I wondered... I thought I might find you, but he trapped me in Chaos..."

"Chaos?" Cloud says, and Vincent sits up, looking at him.

"Yes. I survived, but I couldn't escape the rage... and if I'd found you like that, neither of us would have lived... so I did the only thing I could think of... and now I'm here." Vincent's gaze slides up to Sephiroth. "You are cruel."

"I seem to be hearing a lot of that these days," Sephiroth murmurs.

"Will you have him kill me now, too?" Vincent asks.

"Would you prefer it?"

"Stop it!" Cloud cries out, looking between them. "What--what the hell is going on? I don't know you..." His gaze swings back to Vincent. "...Right? I just..." His hands are starting to shake, so he grips the edge of the coffin, looks back up at Sephiroth. "I don't want to kill anyone else... I don't even understand why... Is he one of our enemies, too?"

"Perhaps not one of ours," Sephiroth says with a shrug, though his gaze doesn't leave Vincent. "But one of the Shinra's. Perhaps. Are you still seeking revenge, Valentine? If it's for all that Hojo did to you, you have my honest sympathies."

"I need none of that, and revenge means very little right now to anyone but you..." Vincent stands, his cape swaying around his slender form. "What will happen when you're finished? Will you then be satisfied? Or will you kill him, too?"

"What...?" Cloud looks up at Sephiroth at that. It's then that he sees it, the smallest smirk turning up those perfect lips.

"Why would I do that?"

"Eternity is a long time," Vincent says. "And you seem to have a gift for your false mother's tendencies toward destruction."

"I've made a promise I intend to keep," Sephiroth says. "I have no fears of him ever boring me, if that's what you're predicting will happen. After all... this has worked well, hasn't it?"

"Cloud," and Vincent's gaze slides back to him, catching his attention, "where is your mother?"

"Mother...?" Cloud shakes his head, looking down. "The house, it was empty..."

"And Zack?"

"How do you know him?" Cloud says, looking up. "Why--"

"Cloud, I hadn't wanted to tell you this," Sephiroth says, and Cloud looks up at him. "But the Shinra are the ones responsible for Zack disappearing... and your mother. To be more specific, it's Hojo's doing. He was running experiments before he died... the Shinra condoned them. When he was killed by one of his specimens, they locked away all of the information, kept it from everyone... and you don't even remember it, do you? Killing him with your bare hands." Sephiroth's hand touches his hair. "I started looking into it when we received orders about our mission here. It's why I was determined for us to leave, once this was all done."

"Is that your goal?" Vincent asks. "Drive him to madness, just as you were driven to madness? Cloud..." He looks back at Vincent, watches as the tall man kneels down, and holds out his claw to him. "Come with me. I'll show you where they are."

"It's all right, Cloud," Sephiroth says. "You can go with him if you like. You don't have to be afraid... I'll find you, no matter where he takes you."

"But the mission...?"

"I have the feeling he's the one they were interested in. Go ahead. I'll check the rest of the rooms, but then I'll come for you, and our mission will be completed."

"Understood..." Cloud watches as Sephiroth walks away, and then he looks at Vincent, who has apparently ignored the whole exchange, merely stands, waiting patiently, with his claw held out to him. "Why are you doing this?"

"I have my reasons," is all he gets in answer, but when the claw closes about his hand, it does so gently.

***

  


On the way down the slope of the crater, he finds a strange body all mangled and misshapen, trapped between the state of a demon and a human. It looks as though it was torn into pieces, and the bloody claws make it appear as if it did so itself.

He stares at the body for some time, staring at the face, half of which he knew so well. But there is no answer here on the slope of the crater, and he turns his back on the corpse, descending further below.

He's almost there. The light from the Mako all around him makes it impossible to tell if it's day or night anymore. He decides it doesn't really matter.

***

  


They leave the mansion and Vincent ignores the black-suited Turks standing guard outside. The Turks try to harass them, to stop them, but Vincent keeps walking and Cloud follows. The snow is falling more heavily now, and it must be driving the monsters into their dens. Cloud hears one of the Nibel wolves howling, just once, but he never sees them.

Vincent doesn't seem like one to talk much, and Cloud takes comfort in it, comfort in the silence, that Vincent isn't saying anything else to confuse him, to make his memory seem stranger than it already is. They walk in silence and Cloud gets the feeling that they've walked these paths before, somehow. It's as they wind their way through the mountains and the Mako reactor's spire comes into view that Cloud reaches with a hand, and Vincent stops even before his hand can touch him. He looks at him expectantly, instead.

"How did I meet you? Before. Before this."

"I think if I tell you, he won't let me keep playing the game," Vincent says, with a shake of his head. "I think I just have to show you what I promised. I'm not ready to quit yet."

They reach the reactor and Vincent heads inside without any reservation. Cloud feels as if he should stop him; after all, only licensed personnel are allowed inside the Mako reactors. But then, he's planning on leaving Shinra with Sephiroth once this is all over, whatever it is, so it doesn't matter.

***

  


He reaches the bottom of the slope, where the earth plummets into an abyss. There is nothing but Mako swirling below, the voices of the Lifestream becoming silenced as they're all drawn together, into one point, one being, one entity. He stares down at it, and then looks at the Ultima Weapon in his hand, how it has shifted to reflect the change in the Planet.

It doesn't matter.

***

  
They drop down to the catwalk that leads across the Mako pit in the reactor, and then into the core. Cloud stops when they enter it, struck with such a strong sensation of deja vu that he can't--but there's something wrong in this room, with its strange red lighting. The room should be filled with Mako chambers, yes, but they should all be egg-shaped, and solid, with little circular windows.

They shouldn't be like this, tall cylinders of glass with the blue Mako inside, and the bodies inside--the bodies--he knows them, some of them, he remembers them.

Vincent stays still beside the steps, watches as Cloud rushes up past him to the topmost tier of the room, looking along the final line of chambers and the bodies floating peacefully within.

"Zack... Mama..." He stops at the last one, where the flower girl from Midgar floats inside. "And... And Aerith. Her name is Aerith, isn't it. I know them, Vincent..."

"But you don't remember them, do you?" Vincent asks, coming up the stairs behind him. "He has them locked away. I'm not sure if you were to release them, they'd survive for long." He shakes his head. "None of us will survive for long, at this rate. I'm sure he's only keeping them there... for you."

"For me?"

"For bait. For poison. For torture. For pleasure. The gods only know." Vincent is staring at the last chamber, the empty one. Then he looks to Cloud. "Cloud... we lost. We all did our best, we fought our best, every last one of us. Even you. You fought the hardest. We know that."

"What are you talking about?" Cloud breathes, stepping backwards, until his back hits a metal door.

"The truth is, we thought we had destroyed him, but there was still something of him left. None of us knew it, not even you... but that was his plan, I take it." Vincent shakes his head. "He's within you, Cloud. Look..." He raises his claw, points to another line of chambers, all of which are connected to one another... and Cloud stares in quiet shock. Within each one is an image of himself, the body he recognizes as when he first entered the Shinra military as a grunt, or back when he was eight years old and he met Tifa on top of the water tower... and there, on the far end, is himself, a little older, with a scar on his chest, directly over his heart--

***

  


The Ultima Weapon is heavier now than it has ever been, but he can still lift it. He has nothing else, after all, just this worn down body in a worn down world that is dying. He lifts the blade over his head, all while staring down at the green light below.

***

  
"But you're all that's left, and that's all he wants," Vincent says, quietly. "So in the end, you are all that matters. You should be the one to choose."

Cloud shakes his head. "I don't want to choose... I didn't choose for everyone to die. I didn't choose this."

"But you're the one who can choose what will happen afterwards. At the center of it all... It will be you and him, alone." Vincent steps closer, reaches with his human hand, and touches Cloud's cheek. There's something about that touch that is familiar, too, and it frightens him even more. "You're the one who will choose... whether we spend eternity sleeping in those glass coffins, coming out to play whenever he wills it..."

"Or if you'll spend eternity with everything you've ever wanted."

Cloud gasps, looks past Vincent, down the steps of the room, to the bottom-most tier where Sephiroth is standing, looking up at them.

"This has been amusing," Sephiroth says, "but now is the time."

Vincent nods. "I take it that last chamber is for me."

"It can be. If he wants you there." The smirk is back, as Sephiroth looks at Cloud. "Do you want him to come with us, Cloud?"

***

  


He falls over the edge, and into the abyss. Below him is the point of light. He knows he's dropping quickly, but everything feels so slow. He's falling forever; he's falling for an instant. The light tries to tear Ultima Weapon from his fingers, but he grips it with all the strength he has left.

***

  


"I won't let you go... Cloud." The whisper is in the dark, as everything descends into the dark.

***

  
He wakes up with a gasp, and the blanket falls from his shoulders. The morning chill causes him to shudder, but a warm hand touches his shoulder. He startles again, only to look down and see pale jade eyes gleaming in the dark, looking up at him. When Sephiroth sits up beside him, he touches his hair, concerned.

"Are you all right?"

"I..." Cloud takes a deep breath, looks around their bedroom. There is the Masamune on the rack on the wall; beneath it hangs his own sword, a large two-handed blade called the Buster Sword, a gift from Zack. There is the framed photograph of his mother on the nightstand. There are the heavy curtains, drawn to keep out Nibelheim's cold, and there is the door to the bathroom and the door out to the hallway... Everything is where it should be. Everything is just so.

Sephiroth doesn't say anything else, just makes another soft sound of concern. Cloud looks up at him, and shakes his head, and when Sephiroth kisses him he opens up. It's a distraction from the vividness of his dream, and when he's pressed back down into the bed the rest of it slips away like smoke.

**Author's Note:**

> So when I first tackled this concept it was back in 2004. I had basically written it off as an idea I'd never be able to follow up to its potential, but the other day--the first day of the New Year, no less--it struck back with a vengeance, and suddenly there it was. The fic has been written over the course of the past three days, with me showing parts of it to a few friends to make sure that this fic was doing what I wanted it to do.
> 
> Inspiration for this story came in part from Gackt's song "Doomsday," from his _Moon_ album and _Wasurenaikara_ single.


End file.
